Susan Tyrrell and Al Pacino on stage in a production of Camino Real in the 1970s.
Susan Tyrrell and Al Pacino on stage in a production of Camino Real in the 1970s.
I just love Tennessee Williams' play Camino Real.
It's pure theatre - colourful, exciting, larger than life and full of all sorts of amazing characters, both real and fictional. Williams described Camino Real as being "the dissolving and transforming images of a dream ...".
With Don Quixote, Sancho Panza,The Lady of the Camellias, Lord Byron, Casanova and Esmeralda the Gypsy's Daughter it can't fail to be anything but an exotic carnival. Truly surreal.
The action of this play takes place by the fountain in the town plaza. Sometimes the play is narrated by the town's wicked mayor, Gutman, and sometimes by Kilroy, the American boxer.
Gutman controls the townsfolk with his officers and 'cleaners'. The inhabitants feel trapped. Beyond their dead-end town lies Terra Incognito where all fear to go, therefore there's huge excitement when Kilroy comes to town. He brings them hope.
Tennessee Williams wrote the play Camino Real in 1953.
When Camino Real premiered on Broadway Kilroy was played by Eli Wallach, who described it as being "the greatest experience I had in theatre". I can believe that. I was cast in Camino Real as a teenager and I've never forgotten it.
Initially, the major theme appears to be the classic one of good versus evil (Kilroy versus Gutman) but it's much more than that. It's a plea to help the helpless, for forgiveness, kindness, understanding, dignity and hope.
In Esmeralda's nightly prayer she captures this sentiment.
"God bless all con men ... the greatest lovers crowned with the longest horns ... look down with a smile tonight on the last cavaliers, the one with the rusty armour and the soiled feathers, and visit with understanding ... those fading legends that come and go in the plaza ... oh somewhere and sometime let there be honour again."
